Open Mind
by fourheads
Summary: What did House really see during those 97 seconds?


**Author's Note**: Sooo, the new season of House is well underway and I have to say that I'm mildly disappointed. Because sure. Blood and vomiting and watching Foreman try to be Jesus is ha-ha funny. And getting some pretty good glimpses at House's ass is always fun. BUT C'MON PPL. Where's the vitality and plot and character development that the show once had such a tight grip on? I dare not say the product of my lovechildren has JUMPEDTHESHARK, but only recently in 4x03 (97 Seconds) has _House_ once again caught my interest. I ADORED the PotW (Patient of the Week) & just so I don't spoil anything for anyone, Housie's "incident" was the only thing that made the character once again put a sparkle in my eyes. (HOW SAD)

But really; everything up until that instant just wasn't all that interesting. Even all the new possible duckies. Even the little insight into Fore/Cam/Chase's soon-to-be-over new lives w/out House.

Anyways, I thought that I'd write my own take of what House saw during his.. "incident" because I am just THAT desperate to know. I'd like some feedback in any reviews of what you guys think he saw, too. I might make a horror fic about it (since I'm feeling like trying something new).

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A painfully blue light flashed through dull, buzzing electric eyes, each second causing them to radiate their artificial euphoria with more and more vigor, rushing through, mastering his body with such grace and horror simultaneously that the substantially-drawn line between his unconsciousness and consciousness had been undoubtedly lost somewhere, lying latent in the thick folds of the brain.

For that one, drawled out, incredible instant, a point in time in which there was no reason to justify actions and no actions to support reason, all feeling, all thought, was gone.

And for the ninety-seven and one-quarter seconds that he had to give his, most likely, nonexistent well-wishing to reality, kiss it gently on the forehead and wave nostalgically as it went on its way, before his entire body went apathetically limp and thumped clumsily against the carpeted floor, he wavered in the air for a moment, almost gracefully as if the strings of God holding onto his puppeted hands had disappeared and left his undecided fate sitting on his empty lap.

_Ninety seconds._

A flash of light somehow illuminated the utter disorganization House found, or couldn't find, himself lost in. Through unopened eyes he saw bitter blackness, then a calm, glowing white. He saw a radiant blue. He saw red, yellow, green, orange, swirling and clashing for dominance until the madness dulled and dimmed and everything and nothing became clear. He saw a piano.

It is said that before a man dies, he sees all the things that have ever had value in his life, all the things that have ever been holy or precious, all the things that have had an impact on his life.

Without thinking , he thinks of all the things that have had worth. Of all things that he loved in his life.

_Seventy-five seconds._

A young man, his shining blonde head of hair wound tightly by a surgical cap, is standing nonchalantly in a dark room, a single bulb scintillating overhead. He is surrounded by three, four, five others. His face is gentle, emitting a hidden softness, yet it seems raw and arrogant; he knows that face.

_Fifty seconds_.

A smooth knife, like the reaper's blade, is held firmly in his hand as he glides effortlessly through a mess of deep reds and flesh. Muffled words are exchanged and a darker man comes into a slightly clearer view as he leans over the table, his arms folded, his expression all-high-and-mighty. He is followed by a young woman, much younger than him.

Even with his nonexistent eyes, even though all vision is terribly waterlogged, he sees her more clearly.

He wants to go up to her, feels the need to rid himself of the terrible monster clinging to his chest, gnawing away at the little bit of man left inside him. She tilts her gloomy head over the dulled body lain atop a cold, silver table and lifts her pale hands to smooth them gently across the body's face.

He feels the sudden chill of metal caressing him, and terrified, he narrows his view of the unmoving body.

He sees himself.

And the vision of another woman, a pained and forlorn like a forgotten memory, steps in.

_Thirty-five seconds._

He is able to see her, wants to touch her. Wants her to touch him.

The older woman, the painful memory, _his_ painful memory kneels beside the table, ignoring the deep carnage and the surrounding party and the damn knife that twinkles menacingly in the blonde doctor's hands, and brushes the unconscious House's lips with hers while brushing his dark hair, matted against his unknowing face.

_Twenty Seconds_.

A Knife. Somehow the fuzzed image of the twinkling knife unrelentlessly tugs at House's retarding image and, again, he is lost.

Jolts of random pain, flashes of random colors, and he sees a window. He sees an aged man looking scornfully from its long rectangular frame, sees the hate and shame and disappointment and rage packaged into his wrinkled face, each crease of skin deepened with each moment of displeasure, and there were many, that he ever faced with House.

His father.

Light pours from the window and his father's face, a face that House thought he could hate, thought he could eliminate if he closed himself in for the rest of his life, but unfailingly could not do so, vanishes.

His mother, a sweet ghost of a smile painted eternally on her face, left behind, vanishes subsequently.

The light splashes across a brown mahogany desk, over worn book cases and shelves, and nick-knacks splayed here and there, and feeling begins to flood back.

_Fifteen seconds_.

There was Wilson, the only vision that he saw perfectly clearly sifting through stacks of files, bored, sipping from a white ceramic coffee mug.

_Ten Seconds_.

He places his face in his hands, frustrated. Unknowingly, House swipes his invisible hands at Wilson, a mess of guilt and more guilt, a need to fix and mend surfaces, but finds himself utterly helpless.

Wilson was drowning.

He needs to help him.

_Five Seconds_.

He had to, he had to apologize, he had to help him however he could, just to repay the small fortune of friendship and kindness that he never failed to give House, expecting nothing in return.

_Four seconds_.

All his only friend was doing was working to lessen the load of others, willing to extinguish his own happiness for the sake of others. He narrowed in on what he saw Wilson writing, his hunched body enclosing the letter as he scribbled purposefully; it was a letter to the family of a terminal patient. How simple, how ridiculously _simple_ his gestures were and in the simplicity of it all, House felt a touch of happiness in the feeling that he had one person in his fading life that he could proudly emulate without question.

He needed to go back.

_Th__ree__ seconds_.

He _felt_.

_Two seconds_.

Then, he felt himself drowning in blackness, bitter blackness encasing him, suffocating him.

But he needed to help Wilson, needed to escape from death and find a way back to reality, the reality that he so loathed and criticized, for the sake of his friend. He needed something, anything to hold onto that would pluck him from this hell of a nightmare.

_One_.

And then feeling, every feeling was returning, flickering back on like millions of light switches, millions of fireflies, and with the weight of a million moons on his shoulders, he felt his eyes, heavy with lethargy and pain, open to the indignant face of Wilson, distraught and disapproving.

He was standing by him as he lay in the crisp white sheets of a hospital bed.

House's eyes scanned his friend's face even as he cringed at the inevitable pain formulating in his now obviously burnt left hand and crippled leg.

Wilson's arms were crossed, his expression of concern replaced with discontent as he opened his mouth and quipped:

"You're an idiot."

Yes, House knew that by now.

Not that that couldn't be fixed, after all, if it took 97 seconds to realize the actual importance that his friend had in his life, how long could it take to let him know so?

Not long at all.

He planned to let him know that.

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WEEEELLLL. That be it. (: Reviews are greatly appreciated.

(& for those who didn't understand the opening paragraph, the 'eyes' were the electric socket and electricity exiting it through the knife and into House's body. Creepy, eh?)


End file.
